@mmasnick Are instances prohibited from selling ads or capturing user data? If not, that would be one reason.

@mmasnick Maybe it's related to why children like Lunchables.

@mmasnick I firmly believe the answer is in the acculturation that massive platforms have fostered. Many people join services not to slowly and carefully cultivate a highly relevant and informative content stream - they want a quickly assembled deluge of distracting and emotionally engaging crap. The blog and RSS paradigm is not the dominant platform.

To that end IMHO, for mastodon or similar to challenge the big players, discovery needs to be optimized in ways we haven't seen before.

@mmasnick The younger you are, the less you remember the Internet as a mesh of protocols rather than a place for products.

@mmasnick why do normal people do any number of ultimately detrimental things? It's usually just about convenience and familiarity, right? And doing what the majority of their friends are doing, avoiding a new learning curve and new habit formation no matter how much it might improve life in the long run, etc. (You probably cover that in the story, I'll read it in a bit!)

@ESC #esc

@mmasnick personally still expect that re-centralisation will ultimately occur, as it did with email, which is now dominated by a small number of big players, with self hosting almost impossible these days.

I did find these arguments quite compelling:

https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2022/11/14/scaling-mastodon/

Hoping I’m wrong though.

@mmasnick Sort of history repeats. 10 years ago when Facebook was the dominant platform then something called "twitter" suddenly entered the scene. Then a lot of people didn't "get" twitter because it connects strangers according to interest and allows scrutiny being totally open. It has become the prime platform for connecting journos to experts. Now #mastodon is perfectly capable to fill this space. Again it will be around not for the masses but for the people shaping discourse.

@mmasnick Insteresting reading, thank you.

@mmasnick this could become Google's moment - connect gmail's chat to the fediverse

@mmasnick It seems that many of the holdouts are ones that feel tied monetarily or by ego (lg following) to the bird app-also the one gravitating to places like Post. Completely missing that the problems caused by putting all your eggs in one basket are not solved by just putting all your eggs in different basket. ION- I saw my first rage farming/clickbait *toot* yesterday. Muted/blocked and smiled widely knowing there was no algorithm here to reward/amplify that. I like that.

@mmasnick great article again, Mike.

Pity your resident trolls make the comments unusable :( Perhaps Santa will put something better for them to do in their stockings?

@mmasnick Iʼd love to have our own instance since we pay for a server, but computers have become much harder to use in the last 15 years (at least to me as a layman). I used to know how to install stuff on a server but now itʼs more command-line where it looks like you need a degree in computer science! Not sure if Iʼm typical, but this may be why some of us went to a big Mastodon instance.

@mmasnick
I love how you captured the Fediverse thought process, I am definitely considering Step 3, making my own instance, I just need to come up with my domain name haha.

@mmasnick Great article!

@mmasnick I've been watching that with some interest. There seems to be a contingent of "users" that have either been trained into the role of captive audience/clout-chasing or who are scared (or lazy) about learning something new.

@mmasnick #mustread @larsweisbrod

@mmasnick I posted something about this on fb and content creators all want large centralized social media they said. It's odd cause a few were socialists lol I'm not sure if they fully understood what decentralized meant

@mmasnick

Thinking is hard and intimidating.

Most people want someone else to do it for them.

Your piece is bang-on.

@mmasnick great and insightful read...next year will be interesting considering Mozilla's recent announcement 😎

@mmasnick I think this past year has had a whole lot of people thinking about their data freedom and being ‘owned’ by for-profit social media companies. Imagine making phone calls that are interrupted randomly by adverts that also listen to what you are saying and which get in the way of actual conversation. This is the thing (among many) which has caused me and others to run away from it as fast as I can! #mastodon :fediverse:

@mmasnick Looking at various people promoting post and hive and such and all I can say is "lol good luck"

@mmasnick, normies don’t care about this kind of thing, they just want it to work, without putting in any effort.
Only techies care about this kind of thing.

@mmasnick I think this is the toot you mentioned:
https://vmst.io/@vmstan/109292004515711386

@mmasnick The line "Perhaps I’m biased (note: I am biased) " is great, but also very wrong here. And as much as I love my sarcasm served deadpan... isn't it really: "I already studied this for yonks, became an expert and made up my mind while you lot were still soiling your online diapers" ...?

@mmasnick I could write a thesis about that. About habitual thinking and how it traps in you in well, your comfortable ways of thinking and doing.

Actuallyl, I have.

@mmasnick Maybe not the most important feature, but a clear issue for Mastodon and similar: verification. It's valuable for readers and for civic info. Self-verification has many pitfalls that I won't spend time on because, simply, I think it misses the point. When I'm reading and see that my mayor has posted something, I want *someone else* to say "yes, checks out". I don't want to do the homework myself and I don't want to count on public figures having bothered to do so or not.

@mmasnick you're preaching to the choir here. ;-)

@mmasnick

For whatever reason, the old castles are crumbling.

Good read. European influenced? : )

@mmasnick Great article. When is techdirt going to add a Mastodon link button?

@mmasnick maybe you've covered it in a previous article, but I would be interested in learning more about how content moderation works here and how it compares to a centralized system.

@mmasnick cos not everyone is a nerd, pretty simple

@mmasnick this! 1000% this!

Over time we’ve witnessed the gradual corruption of the ‘digital town square’ through monetization and now its collapse in real time because of centralization.

Why the fuck would anyone willingly sign up to do all that over again?!

@mmasnick congratulations on this piece. I have read it earlier today and is really good!

@mmasnick wow, the quality of responses here vs Twitter or Reddit is remarkable… it’s almost like people aren’t karma/follower farming

@mmasnick Please explain the difference to a novice.

@mmasnick

I think it's just a matter of time before Big Tech Bro figures out a way to siphon and monetize our data again, maybe with slick federatable instances with lots of shiny features not available elsewhere that draw people away and back into SV's clutches.

Yeah, the nerds or principled early adopters here will stick to our niches, but I'd like to see more proactive efforts to at least slow a new re-centralization.

@mmasnick @charles_ex @aloa5

@mmasnick you explaining the whole choice thing at the beginning is what gave me encouragement to just roll with it. Now I love it, so many interesting things. Post feels like a product, a new magazine. Mastodon feels like a library where talking is encouraged. PS. Tip the librarians.

@mmasnick Have we not had "protocols instead of platforms" before? Isn't email that? Or the whole web?

There's a reason why platforms became popular: they addressed a (perceived or real) failing of the 'protocol'. That has to be addressed or another platform will rise.

@mmasnick At the end of the day, people just need something that works and can handle the traffic of a major social media platform. Ninety-nine percent don't care whether it is a centralized or open platform.

@mmasnick very good point

@mmasnick I think it comes down to decentralized is just confusing. Mastodon has a huge learning curve where Twitter just made sense for a long time.